Absolutism vs. Relativism

Just met with my collaborator, Graham, over coffee and innumerable cups of black tea, to discuss our ongoing work on Yrunn. Our discussion devolved into an exchange of absolutist (mine) vs. relativist (his) views.

I'm grateful that we had the opportunity to exchange views; among other things, I was required to defend my belief in God and the existence of an absolute right and wrong. For example, when I mentioned, in passing, that I believed man to be made in God's image and thus to possess many of God's various aspects (creativity, capability for rational thought, etc.), Graham worried about my employment of what he considered to be assumptions (among these, in his view: the absolute infallibility of the Bible as God's Word, the very existence of a supreme being, ...).

I explained that I consider these not assumptions, but take them to be facts on the basis of faith. I further explained that faith is a rational acceptance of an objectively unverifiable preposition based on external corroborating evidence and previous experience, using the analogy of taking a flight to a different country. After all, when one boards an aircraft, one has no specific guarantee of safe arrival from the pilot, the maker of the aircraft, or the aviation authorities.

But based on the preponderance of positive evidence: anecdotes of other travellers, previous personal experience of successful flight, knowledge of the physics which enables a heavier-than-air object to soar in blue skies above; one can set foot on that aircraft with a reasonable degree of certainty of safe arrival at one's destination.

Similarly, I explained, my personal experience has borne out the truth of the Bible Word. On top of that, archaeology and modern science agree with everything contained therein; the internal consistency is there. And on top of all that, the truth of the Word itself, as declared within the Word, is a binary proposition, either true or not true, with no other allowable option.

As a reasoning man, therefore, and based on the above (internal consistency of the source material in addition to external corroborating evidence), I am able to accept the premise that there is a God. I suspect that the relativist position is motivated by the realization that when one accepts this premise, there is a natural (and for many, undesirable) consequence: accountability to a Creator.